February 2025

Spring get-together

We cordially invite all residents and users of our building Barentszplein 2-10 to our get-together on Friday, February 14, 2025! Whether you see it as a slightly delayed New Year's drink or an early spring drink, everyone is welcome! We start at 17:00, in the hall of our building.

Get together to ring in the new year or welcome spring. This is a great opportunity to catch up with fellow residents and raise a glass to a successful year for our VvE.

Presentation energy advice

Prior to the drinks, we will organize a presentation of the energy advice we recently received from the municipality of Amsterdam. A specialized company has screened our building and offers us insight into additional possibilities for energy savings and sustainability.

The presentation is Friday, February 14, 2025, at 4:00 PM. The presentation will be held in the office of Send AI, number 6G on the third floor.

We hope for a nice turnout, both at the presentation and the drinks. This is a great opportunity to learn more about our building and to get to know each other better.

General members' meeting

To put in the agenda: the annual members' meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, June 4, 2025!

Car chargers

The "car chargers" project is almost complete. The last chargers for the middle rows will be installed around 10 February. Some residents are already using their chargers attached to the wall to their full satisfaction. The project group is very satisfied with how the company Laadsnel has arranged everything smoothly and neatly.

Most chargers in the middle will be attached to a column, but where there is no column, the charger will be hung from the ceiling. This means that it could be damaged if the road is taken in/out of the garage by means of shortcuts through parking spots. We will therefore install thresholds to protect the chargers and you are kindly requested to only use the official route and not to drive over the parking spaces.

To be able to disconnect the charging installation in one fell swoop, 2 emergency buttons have been installed. One at the west entrance to the stair/elevator portal on -2 and one at the exit towards the alley on the street side on the ground floor.

All charging station owners will receive an email with more information (also available on the website) as soon as their station has been delivered.

New administration office

As decided last year, the VvE has a new administration office, Sturm & De Neeve (S&N). The transition from De Nieuwe Wereld (DNW) to S&N was initiated at the beginning of January. Here is a brief overview of the state of affairs so far.
The first step that is taken is to transfer the financial administration. If all goes well, everyone has already seen (and hopefully issued) the authorization for the service costs in mid-December.

New bank accounts have also been requested and the administration of Twinq will be transferred to a new account. The start is hopeful. The transfer is expected to be fully completed by the end of March. This also means that the annual accounts have been drawn up by DNW and checked by the board and audit committee. The transfer period ends after March.

The second step that gets underway is the technical management of the building. As a board, we want to walk around with S&N in the short term and show all current affairs.

The expectation is that this will enable S&N to take the right actions in the event of reported repairs and ongoing projects. In a few cases, the lack of good insight still leads to an incorrect assessment of reports, but this is being worked on. The tour will be an important step in this.

With these two most important steps, we hope that the maintenance of the building will be raised to a higher level and that the active involvement of the board in its implementation can be significantly reduced. After the first few weeks, we are positive about that, but of course it is only a short period of time.

Spring cleaning

On Saturday morning, April 12, 2025 from 10:30 am (gather at the entrance), we will once again organize a pleasant and productive spring cleaning! During previous clean-ups, we freshened up our building and the surrounding area with a large group of enthusiastic residents.

We hope for a good turnout this year as well. By rolling up our sleeves together, we ensure that our building and its surroundings look tip-top again. This is not only good for the appearance, but also contributes to a pleasant living environment for everyone.

What's on the program?

• Impregnation of decking
  We are going to impregnate the decking on the fourth floor to prepare them for the coming seasons.
• Cleaning the entrance and the square
  Cleaning up papers and other litter, so that it looks fresh and clean again.
• Check the alley
  We check the alley and clean it where necessary.
• Other
  Other cleaning activities that come up on the day itself are tackled together, and we also use the day to identify where additional maintenance is needed.

Fire?!

As most of you have noticed, there is a fire alarm system (FAS) downstairs in the central hall. This installation continuously measures whether there is smoke or fire in the parking garage, but also whether there is a malfunction in the fire alarm system itself. If a malfunction report is issued, the members of the fire alarm group (a number of residents) will be informed by a central service and will handle it further. If there is a fire alarm, they will also be informed, but the fire brigade will also turn out. In the event of a fire alarm, the lifts no longer work and other systems start to work a little harder, such as the fans in the garage.

It is important for you to know that:

• The FAS is only for the garage
• Fires in other areas such as storage rooms, stairs and lift portals are not monitored and you must report them yourself via a fire alarm and by calling 112.
• Of course, this also applies to your home, where you hopefully have installed fire detectors yourself.
• When installing the charging stations, emergency buttons were also installed as an extra precaution to disconnect the power from all charging stations. If you notice smoke or fire in the garage, do not wait for the FAS to give a report but:
  • Press a fire alarm
  • Press one of the red emergency buttons (there is one at the west door to the elevator door, the other is on the ground floor near the exit to the alley on the street side)
  • Call 112 (but realize that mobile coverage at -2 is very bad!)

Maybe a good idea to take a look at where the fire detectors are and what you would do in the event of a fire.

Access to the building

In the meantime, all card readers and the license plate cameras in our building have been replaced and installed. If all goes well, all users now have new "drops" in their possession.

For the parking garage, the cameras are active, but everything is still running in a test mode and all license plates are allowed. This will remain the case until the corresponding software environment has been configured, and all users have had the opportunity to download and view the necessary app. We will keep everyone informed when this next step is taken!

For the garage, a good solution is still being looked at for motorcycles, among other things – either extra regular card readers that can open the speedgate, or a software solution via the app. This is still being discussed with the supplier.

Calamity committee?

The VvE is considering setting up an calamity committee to be prepared for possible emergencies. Think of situations such as serious flooding due to rain or flooding, prolonged power outages, or incidents such as fire.

Why an calamity committee?
The purpose of this committee is to think in advance with a number of members about possible emergencies and strategies to tackle them effectively. By going through scenarios in advance and coming up with solutions, we can act faster and smarter in the event of an emergency, which does benefit safety and the comfort of all residents.

What do we expect?

• To meet a number of times to go through possible emergency scenarios.
• To devise strategies and solutions for different emergencies.
• To contribute to the preparation of an emergency plan for our building.

By participating in this committee, you help to create a safer and better prepared living/working bulding. If you are interested in participating or would like more information, we would love to hear from you!

Keeping gutters and drains clean

We would like to ask everyone again to keep the gutters and drains around their own home clean, free of rubbish and leaves and so on. Poorly draining rainwater can quite easily lead to leaks in our building, and unfortunately we already have enough of those...

Parking garage lighting

As you may have noticed, the work on the new, more energy-efficient lighting in the parking garage is also almost complete, including all the lamps that no longer function have been addressed.

De Groene Barentsz

We have approved a first workable impression as a committee and are curious about the opinion of the neighbourhood! Flyers with a link where the plans can be seen and an email address where reactions can be given, will follow in the mailbox in due course.

On April 12, 2025, between 10:00 and 12:00am, the committee will organize a get-together on the square, where all neighbours will have the opportunity to share their tips and tricks about the green plan that is there with us. The creator of the plan, Onno Bakker, will also be there to answer questions.

That morning there will also be an opportunity to sign up for various green maintenance crews that are needed to maintain the square.

In May we will submit the final plan to "West begroot". When the money is in and there are enough volunteers to maintain the square in the coming years, work will start this autumn or in the spring of 2026. From a Grey to a Green Barentsz!